Khatami Admits Iran Imprisons People for Beliefs

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040428/wl_nm/iran_khatami_prisoners_dc_1

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran holds people in prison for their political beliefs, President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites) was quoted as saying Wednesday, breaking a series of Iranian denials on the subject of political prisoners.

Iran's prisoners include Hashem Aghajari, a history lecturer who urged Iranians to forge their own interpretation of Islam and not follow the nation's clerical hierarchy "like monkeys," and Ahmad Batebi, who was jailed for holding the blood-stained T-shirt of a friend wounded in 1999 student protests.


"Absolutely, we do have political prisoners. There are those who are in prison for their beliefs," the moderate president was quoted as saying in the Iran daily newspaper.


Taking questions from young people frustrated by the lack of progress in his reform agenda, Khatami told an unusually frank meeting Tuesday he intended to publish fresh grievances about his inability to temper hard-line power.